United can be cham­pi­ons un­der Mour­inho: Can­tona

For­mer Manchester United great Eric Can­tona has backed Jose Mour­inho’s squad to get back to chal­leng­ing for top hon­ours, three years since they last won the Pre­mier League.

“It’s just the be­gin­ning. Manchester can still be cham­pi­ons. Jose Mour­inho is a suc­cess­ful man­ager at a suc­cess­ful club which this year has suc­ces­ful play­ers,” the for­mer French in­ter­na­tional said in an in­ter­view pub­lished Wed­nes­day in Por­tuguese daily news­pa­per Publico.

“But this is an ex­tremely dif­fi­cult cham­pi­onship, full of great teams and great man­agers like (Manchester City coach) Pep Guardi­ola,” he added.

Since Alex Fer­gu­son re­tired af­ter win­ning the league in 2013, Manchester United have fin­ished sev­enth, fourth and fifth, their only ma­jor tro­phy dur­ing that time be­ing last sea­son’s FA Cup.

The club kicked off their league cam­paign this sea­son with three straight wins un­der Mour­inho, but slumped to back-to­back de­feats against Manchester City and Wat­ford. They are in sixth place in the English Pre­mier League ta­ble with 12 points af­ter seven matches.

Af­ter the in­ter­na­tional break, Manchester United travel to Liver­pool on Oc­to­ber 17. Can­tona, 50, won four league ti­tles with united prior to re­tir­ing in 1997 at the end of a colour­ful ca­reer in which he be­came a cult fig­ure at Old Traf­ford. He now lives in Lis­bon. — AFP